From the title of this post you probably get the gist of this post. I feel compelled to write it anyway.
I have noticed in my dealings with various websites around the Internet, that often, as a matter of fact, more often than not, the web developers and managers decide that something isn't working, or doesn't work as well as it should. Unilaterally. Often, it has been the tried-and-true, FUNCTIONAL programs we all seem to like and rely on. Facebook. MySpace. ReverbNation. Music Xray. Even our browsers...Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape Navigator (remember that one?!?)
Why? Progress.
Sometimes, the newly improved programs or sites are, indeed, new and improved. Oftentimes they are not. I have recently (10 minutes ago as I write this) had the displeasure of being told by the website, and I'll name names, Music Xray, that my browser was out-of-date and would not work with their website. They provided a link to a choice of four different browsers, all of them free, all of them with their own little quirks (my opinion, my blog). Internet Explorer was provided as one of the links. I like Internet Explorer. I clicked the link. I was taken to a Microsoft site, and within ten seconds, a message came across my screen that told me that I was running IE8 and Windows XP Pro. The message continued with the assurance that my browser was the most up-to-date browser available for XP. With that information, I returned to the Music Xray website and again attempted to log in, this time with the knowledge that my browser was indeed, up-to-date. Same result.
Now, I am not a neophyte with these computer things...I studied programming in college. One of the things, one of the cardinal rules of programming that I was taught was this: People will have different operating systems. Make it work, no matter what system they run.
With that in mind, I attempted to contact Music Xray's tech people, through their "contact us" link. It allowed me to enter my entire complaint. Now I'm getting somewhere, right? Wrong. As soon as I hit the "Send" button, it took me to another site where a few "problems" with their website were listed, along with a "Does this help you or do you still need to send your complaint" link. Well, someone else had had exactly the same issue as I. So, I clicked on that, and it took me to another page. I kinda think it was done to make things easier for them, but it definitely did NOT make things easier for me. After I read the response, (and the heated exchange ensued, back and forth) I decided that no, it did not help, and I attempted to return to the previous page. It had been closed, somehow, and even hitting the "back" button on my browser would not take me there.
They're not gonna treat me like that, are they? So, I went through the process again, this time, it only took about 5 minutes to get back to the complaint page. I typed in my complaint again. This time, when they tried to send me to the "Does this help..." page, I said no, it hadn't helped and tried to send my complaint. I don't know where it went. I don't care anymore. If they are going to treat me with my UP-TO-DATE system as a step-child because I won't "Upgrade" to Google Chrome (apparently, there is some control game going on here...uh-oh...this is a Google blog...we'll see if that matters....) then they don't want my business. And I am a PAYING customer on Music Xray. Maybe my ten dollars isn't significant to them. I wish I could say that about ten dollars. But it will be a long time before I decide ten dollars is chump change. I can't be certain how much I've spent on their site, but each time I submitted a song to one of their "opportunities", I paid. At least until I could no longer access the site. I guess this is the new reality...the customer isn't always right. Welcome to the 21st Century.
